


Vändpunkt

by Lady_in_Red



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, IKEA, Roommates, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furniture shopping can test any relationship, but a day of shopping at IKEA with the roommate you want in your bed is much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. CAFE

**VӒNDPUNKT**

**Shopping experience, options vary by location, not sold online**

Key features

  * Hours of togetherness in our maze-like sales floor.
  * No need to leave the store for lunch. Food available for purchase.
  * Plethora of product options to meet all your furnishing needs.



Care instructions

  * Limited warranty. Buyer assumes responsibility for own behavior. Products purchased covered by IKEA’s 90 day warranty.  
  * Salespeople are not trained therapists or matchmakers.
  * No shoes on the furniture please. 



Product description

  * Get answers to your relationship questions along with tasty meatballs and whimsical, affordable furnishings.
  * Cozy furniture groupings for awkward conversations in a semi-public space. 
  * Delivery available for those who unwisely visit in economy cars.



 

* * *

 

“You promised me breakfast,” Jaime said with a huff, slamming the passenger door. He squinted up at the vast blue and yellow warehouse looming over the parking lot. 

Brienne stretched, her back popping. She loved the gas mileage her little hybrid got, but it lacked leg room and after a while she tended to get uncomfortable. Jaime, on the other hand, had somehow managed to sprawl out in the tiny passenger seat, his feet up on the dash while he played games on his phone. 

“There’s a restaurant in the store. We can eat and then shop,” she coaxed. 

Jaime didn’t look convinced, but he fell in step beside her as they went inside. She ignored his grumbling complaints over the few breakfast choices when they reached the cafe, not full but still bustling with other early morning shoppers. Brienne stuck with the $.99 breakfast plate, while Jaime filled his tray with waffles, sausages, and a cinnamon roll bigger than his fist. He waved off her offer to pay and grumbled about pushy women when she shoved a few bills in his back pocket while he poured them both coffee. 

Brienne reviewed her shopping list while they ate. Odds and ends mostly, aside from the couch. They’d been living together half a year, but the domesticity of this, picking out things for their home, felt more permanent than the two months remaining on their lease. The renewal letter had come a week earlier, the same day the couch collapsed. Brienne hadn't mentioned it to him yet. Just looking at him these days stirred up feelings she didn’t want to examine too closely. Another year together was too big to consider yet.

Jaime didn’t quite seem to know what to make of the massive, brightly-lit store, but he was happy enough to eat and people-watch, making up stories about the shoppers around them. The couple three tables away were furnishing their new love nest. The family with the scrambled-egg tossing toddler was clearly replacing items the little tyke had destroyed. 

What would he say about them, if they were sitting across the cafe under his scrutiny? Unshaven but undeniably handsome Jaime in his cargo pants and close-fitted sweatshirt. She’d teased him about that sweatshirt, a gift from Tyrion, designer and so expensive it cost more than the entire contents of her closet. And Brienne, big and ugly and grateful for the trend of skinny jeans in menswear, since she could finally buy pants in a store instead of online. The kindest thing he might say about them was that they were an odd couple. Fond as she was of Jaime, ‘kind’ wasn’t the first word Brienne would use to describe him. 

When he’d finished his food, Jaime turned his attention to the table and chairs they occupied and asked, “Is everything in this store made out of plastic and particle-board?”  

“You didn’t have to come. I told you I could handle it,” she reminded him. “It was my couch.”

He shrugged, stole the last bite of potatoes from her plate. “I broke it. I said I’d replace it.” Jaime vaulting over the back to crash down beside her had snapped the frame of her dad’s ancient couch, dumping both of them unceremoniously on the floor the previous weekend. They’d been sitting in folding chairs or spending the evenings in their rooms ever since. 

“Jaime, I’ve seen your taste in furniture. I’d rather pick something out myself.” Jaime’s bed frame and dresser were heirlooms carved from dark woods, the bed covered with a lush gold duvet and so many pillows she could scarcely believe he fit in there at all. He’d contributed nothing to the common areas of the apartment save his towel and toiletries in the bathroom and a fancy coffee machine in the kitchen.

His eyebrows shot up. “Says the woman who thinks two-by-fours and cinder blocks make a bookcase. If I’m not here you’ll pick the cheapest option even if the fabric makes a hair shirt seem like silk by comparison.” 

Brienne frowned but couldn’t protest. Besides, Jaime hadn’t had much say in what any of his homes had looked like. He’d gone from his father’s house to a military barracks to Cersei’s guest house to Brienne’s apartment. Giving him some say over the couch he was paying for wasn’t too much to ask. At least here he couldn’t pick anything too outrageously expensive. 

“Fine, you can help me choose.” She sighed at the triumphant grin on his face and stood up. “Come on, Goldilocks. Let’s find a couch that’s just right.”  

 


	2. EKTORP

“What was wrong with that Death Star lamp?” Jaime asked, flopping down in a wingback chair. The chair was much less comfortable than it had looked, but he wasn’t about to get up. They’d wandered through a sea of bizarrely-named desks, bookcases and wardrobes, past the brightly-colored mayhem of the children’s products and through a room filled with dining sets, where Jaime had spotted a hanging white sphere that opened like a puzzle ball to reveal lights reflecting off a copper interior.  

Brienne sighed. “You’d probably electrocute yourself installing it. Besides, we already have a pendant over the dining table.”

“You care about me.” He grinned up at her.

Brienne snorted and walked away, consulting her neatly-written shopping list. “I care about your half of the rent.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetling.” She hated that endearment, and he knew it, so he used it when he wanted her attention. She used to correct him, especially when he first moved in and they were both prickly and grieving and prone to taking out their frustrations on each other. Now, she just rolled her eyes or ignored him. 

Brienne was halfway across the broad expanse of fake living room groupings, checking each tag as she passed armchairs, loveseats, and couches. Jaime was fully prepared to veto her choice if she picked a loveseat. While being forced to sit close beside her wasn’t a terrible thought, neither of them were small. He wanted a couch a person could actually relax on.

“Can I help you find something today, ser?” 

Jaime looked up at the perky girl in her yellow and blue striped shirt, smiling at him hopefully with a mouth full of metal braces. He wondered if they worked on commission. “No, thanks, I’m with her.” He pointed toward Brienne.

“Oh, of course.” Jaime was fairly certain there was disappointment in her voice along with a touch of bewilderment. She wasn’t as young as he’d first thought, now that he looked more closely. “Just let me know if you have any questions.” 

Jaime levered himself up out of the chair and made his way over to Brienne. She was seated on a simple three-cushion sofa. White, boring, and reasonably-priced. He glanced at the tag. Ektorp. It sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball.

“This is the one I had in mind.” She pushed down on the cushions experimentally, brow knit in concentration. “What do you think?”

Jaime sat beside her, close enough that their legs touched. He leaned back, his arms spread across the top of the couch. He could reach the ends on both sides. The cushions were firm but thin, and he didn’t think they’d hold up for long. “It’s perfect … for Tyrion.”

She sighed. “It looked bigger online.”

“Brienne, it’s white. I’d dirty this in a heartbeat. Come on.” He stood and offered her his hand. “Let’s find something bigger, definitely a darker color.”

“It comes in plenty of colors,” she pointed out as he pulled her up from the couch, but the color was the least of Jaime’s issues with the couch. 

He zeroed in on the largest couches, massive sectionals that may or may not fit in their living room. Jaime knew how to get what he wanted with her, at least most of the time. Start big, let her work him down until they reached a compromise. Nine times out of ten, Jaime got what he’d wanted in the first place. The tenth time… lately the things he wanted would be like lobbing a grenade into their friendship no matter how he approached them. 

Lying on his bed a few nights earlier, he and Brienne had watched at least half a movie before she fell asleep next to him. Jaime couldn’t remember a single thing about the movie. There might have been explosions. Motorcycles maybe. All he remembered was Brienne sucking salt and butter off her fingers from the popcorn, and how her hip bumped his, her foot rubbing against his calf when she shifted to get more comfortable. Somehow Jaime didn’t think he could propose licking every inch of her body and negotiate down to rolling around in his bed groping each other for a few hours. Sex wasn’t casual for either of them, and Jaime was loathe to lose one of his few friends just because he got hard every time her shirt rode up.

Brienne was blissfully ignorant of the conflict Jaime felt. She was too busy sprawling awkwardly across a series of economical mid-century modern loveseats and sofas in improbable fabric prints. Jaime practically bit through his lip stopping himself from asking her if repeated athletic fucking would void the ten-year limited warranty. Instead Jaime steered her toward leather, sturdier construction, models with a chaise at one end. Damn her, Brienne pointed out a simple futon that turned into a guest bed. 

There was only so much teasing a man could endure, even if she had no idea what she was doing to him. It wasn’t even as if Brienne was pretty. Jaime wasn’t delusional. She was broad shouldered and flat chested with a face whose sole charm lay in those devastating blue eyes. But damned if he didn’t still find her sexy. Painfully so at times. 

“If you want a bed in the living room, let’s go with this one.” He stretched out on a double chaise that looked more like a small bed than a couch. 

Brienne colored, and Jaime counted that as a victory. She should at least be as uncomfortable as he was, and oddly enough, teasing her helped him focus on something other than his poorly-timed sexual fantasies. If he didn’t manage to jump off this train of thought soon, cargo shorts weren’t going to hide an inconvenient erection, and he didn’t need a public indecency charge on his record. 

“I don’t want a bed in the living room, I just thought it’d be nice for guests,” she protested.

Guests? Neither of them had a vast circle of friends. Their most frequent visitor was Tyrion, who didn’t take up much in the way of space. Hells, he spent most of his time in their apartment perched on the arm of the couch because he liked looking down on them. But at least she’d given Jaime the perfect excuse to push for a larger couch. “Then let’s get a couch that another person can sit on. Or we could go wild and get a chair too. Maybe that Poäng thing over there.” 

Brienne looked at him dubiously and offered him a hand to get up. “You just like the name, and I don’t think we have enough space for a chair too.”

“Then we have to get a couch we both actually fit on. Maybe one we could lay on,” he suggested. Jaime understood she was uncomfortable about the added expense, but a few hundred more was nothing to Jaime and would make a huge difference in their daily comfort. Neither of them were big television fans, but they did spend much of their evenings in the living room. Brienne nearly always had a novel in her hand, and Jaime often played video games to escape the stresses of work. They both watched sports, too, and especially at playoff time that meant long hours on the couch, sometimes late at night when overtimes inevitably happened.

Brienne’s cheeks darkened further. “What? Why would we...” 

Jaime grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her so she could see a dark leather corner sofa. Only after her small “Oh,” did he realize what she thought he’d been suggesting. A couch they could lie on, together. While before he’d pictured them lounging on opposite sides of the couch, suddenly that image was decidedly more adult. Gods, this was just like when Myrcella explained to him what ‘Netflix and chill’ actually meant.

He’d decided long ago that this was not a path he and Brienne should take. Too risky, and frankly she deserved someone nicer, someone who didn’t have a habit of wielding honesty like a cudgel.  But sometimes his control slipped. Jaime could have easily woken Brienne the other night and sent her back to her own room to sleep. But her warm, soft body beside him was too tempting to resist.

They hadn’t talked about it, either, or any of the other small moments that left him certain he wasn’t the only one tempted. The gods knew they’d both been burned, were still smoldering when Jaime moved in. He’d just learned that Cersei had other lovers, and Brienne had finally dumped Renly. Jaime still wasn’t sure what had compelled him to offer up his own affair as proof that there were worse things than finding another man sucking off your boyfriend in your living room. At least Brienne hadn’t given decades of her life to Renly’s tepid affections.  

Jaime waited for the surge of anger that usually accompanied those thoughts. At Cersei, at himself, at Renly. But standing in the middle of IKEA, Brienne’s strong shoulders under his hands, his mouth tantalizingly close to the freckled nape of her neck, all Jaime could think about was finding a way to tease her just as much as she’d been tempting him.

 


	3. HASSELVIKA

They were still arguing about the couch when they walked into the bedroom section. Mid-sentence, Jaime stopped defending his choice and wandered off among the beds.

“Where are you going?” 

He glanced back over his shoulder, grinning like the Chesire Cat. “To get rid of that medieval monstrosity taking up my entire bedroom.”

Brienne groaned. They were never getting out of here if Jaime insisted on testing out all the beds. As it was they must’ve sat on, laid on, or otherwise inspected nearly every couch in the living room section. The leather beast they’d eventually settled on cost far more than Brienne liked, but he’d worn her down. Jaime had a way of doing that. It mostly involved alternating between devilish smiles and puppy-dog eyes, and she hated that it worked so well.

“It’s a family heirloom, Jaime. You can’t exactly set it out at the curb for the trash pickers.”

He crouched down to get a closer look at the drawers under a solid, knotty pine bed frame. “I could, but I’ll have it shipped back to the Rock. I think it’s time for something with a bit less history.”

When he'd first moved into her apartment, when Brienne knew him mainly as Renly’s brother-in-law, the only other person who seemed to appreciate how forced and fake Lannister-Baratheon get-togethers really were, Jaime had told her that the ornate four-poster bed once belonged to the mistress of a widowed Lannister lord. Jaime had whispered in her ear that his bed had seen hundreds of years of debauchery.

His bed had seen far more recent trysts, she knew, though none since he had moved into Brienne’s apartment. Jaime had said, several times over the past few months, that he was ready to move on, to put his complicated, twisted relationship with Cersei behind him, but he’d never acted on it. Jaime didn’t date, regularly rebuffing advances from women. When she’d asked him why, he’d just shrugged and said those women weren’t what he wanted.

“What about this one?” Brienne pointed to a simple platform bed. 

He looked dubious, but stretched out across the bed to reach the tag on the far side. Jaime shook his head. “Particle board. Nope. I need something sturdy. Something that won’t break like your couch.”

Brienne laughed. “Are you planning to cannonball onto your bed, too?”

“There are other ways to make a bed shake, Brienne.” He tossed her a wink as he levered himself up off the bed, the muscles of his arms flexing against the sleeves of his sweatshirt as he moved. 

The clearly-smitten mouse of a salesgirl Jaime had charmed while ordering their couch had bid them good-bye when they crossed into the next area of the store, but he found a new saleswoman easily enough. This one had unruly dark curls, bedroom eyes, and full breasts that strained against her polo shirt. Even from her vantage point halfway across the bedroom section, Brienne could see the way the woman touched his arm and leaned closer to him when she talked to him.  

Brienne caught the confusion that flashed across the saleswoman’s features briefly when Jaime pointed back at Brienne. Silly, as this was definitely one decision where he did not need her input, but she made her way over to them anyway. 

“—something big. Solid but not overpowering,” Jaime was saying.

The woman,  _ Hildy  _ according to her name tag, nodded and tapped one finger against her lips, thinking. She glanced briefly at Brienne, gaze traveling swiftly up the substantial distance between Brienne’s battered sneakers and her limp hair. “A queen’s not going to be enough for you. We don’t have any king frames in the showroom, but let me show you a few that do come in that size.”

The three of them moved awkwardly around the showroom, Hildy repeatedly soliciting Brienne's opinion. There were only a few beds that met Jaime's criteria, and he'd already rejected one of them.  

At Hildy’s suggestion, Jaime made himself comfortable on a bed with a slatted headboard. Then Hildy patted the other side of the bed. “Don't be shy. The real thing will be a bit larger, of course. Plenty of room for both of you, and it's built to hold a considerable amount of weight.” She stared expectantly at Brienne.

Brienne nearly choked. Hildy thought they were a couple? A couple who needed a bed that held 'considerable weight.' She made Brienne sound like an elephant. Hildy was hardly the first woman to remind Brienne of her shortcomings, but she might have managed it in the fewest number of words.  


“Come here, sweetling. We can cuddle.” Jaime looked far too amused. She wanted to wipe that smile right off his face. 

“No, thank you.” Brienne didn’t need a reminder of what it was like to share a bed with Jaime. He hadn't even made a move (as if he would), they'd just watched a movie on his bed, his lean body against her side and his breath in her ear when he spoke. She still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to fall asleep mid-movie, but she’d woken in the morning cuddled against him, her hand on his chest and popcorn spilled on the duvet around them. 

He looked up at her from the bed, green eyes glittering with mirth as he stretched a hand up to the headboard. “Look, you could tie me up.”

Her face was so hot she must be visible from space. “I’d rather gag you.”

His eyes never left her face. “No, you wouldn’t.” His voice was still teasing, but low and rough in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. 

Brienne wanted to gag him right now, because he never knew when to stop, and she’d never get what she wanted from that voice, from him. No one ever really meant it, when they flirted with her, when they gave her attention. Brienne had never been the one men really wanted, not even Renly. She was the one who was there, for now, who was convenient and safe. Jaime had never meant a single flirtatious comment aimed her way, and though she knew he didn’t mean to hurt her, she was still hurt. Brienne turned to Hildy. “He’ll need a new mattress, right?” 

Sensing another sale, Hildy nodded vigorously and pointed across the aisle at a dimly-lit alcove filled with mattresses. Brienne swiftly set off and claimed the biggest one for herself. As long as no children took a fancy to jumping on her mattress, she should be fine while Hildy flirted her way into selling Jaime no doubt the most expensive bed frame in the store. She closed her eyes and let the chatter of nearby customers wash over her. Amazing what people would say in public when they thought no one was listening.

“Well, I think we have a winner.” Jaime’s dry voice above her startled Brienne. 

She opened her eyes just in time to see a blur of Jaime falling onto the mattress beside her. The bed, surprisingly, barely moved despite his impact. Brienne turned to ask Hildy about that, and realized that Jaime was alone. “I can’t believe she let you get away. Or did she already slip you her number?”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “She’s placing the bed frame order while I pick out a mattress. I thought you might be more comfortable without her around.”

“That was your fault.  _ Sweetling_, really?”

Jaime grinned. “She assumed. I just played along.” He fumbled for the mattress tag, squinting at the small print. “I hope this thing fits in my room.”

Brienne took a deep breath. She was never going to get a better opening than that. “If it doesn’t, our lease is up in two months. I’m sure it’ll fit wherever you end up.” She pushed herself up off the mattress, not ready to see his reaction. “Come on, I think they’re serving lunch now.”   

 


	4. Interlude: MEATBALL COMBO

Her client was late. Not only was he late, but he’d insisted on meeting in this wretchedly loud cafe inside IKEA. Petyr Baelish was furnishing a new block of vacation cottages on the coast, and had only a few minutes to spare to meet with her. 

Ordinarily, Chataya did not wait for anyone, but this deal would net her a very large commission, so she waited, sipping a cup of strong coffee. At least she had some entertainment. The pair at the next table were having the most awkward, subtext-laden meal she’d witnessed in quite some time. 

The woman was large, pale and plain, wearing a men’s T-shirt and her hair scraped severely back from her face with a simple blue wrap that called attention to her only lovely feature, deep blue eyes. The man was well-built and sun-kissed, blonde and eye-catchingly handsome. 

Chataya wouldn’t have looked twice at them if not for the way the man was looking at his companion. The intensity of his gaze was out of place here, and particularly aimed at such an unusual woman. They’d arrived a few minutes ago, not long after Chataya herself. Unlike most of the people here, they were barely speaking to each other and she avoided looking at him. She pushed her salad around her plate without actually eating much. The meatballs piled on his plate disappeared into his mouth with alarming speed.  

The man pushed his last meatball through the thin smear of lingonberry sauce remaining on his plate. “So, our lease is up in two months?”

Perhaps they were business partners, a couple in the midst of a fight, friends with benefits, or simply roommates. Perhaps they needed a realtor. No, dressed as casually as they were, Chataya doubted either of them would be a lucrative client. Although the man did look familiar somehow. She would figure it out. She was good with faces.

The woman stabbed a piece of strawberry with her fork and popped it into her mouth.  A plate of chocolate cake sat untouched between their trays. “The renewal form came the day you broke the couch.”

That piqued Chataya’s interest. Broken furniture? He didn’t seem the type to toss furniture about in a rage, but he did seem like a passionate man. One who might break things at the height of passion. Funny, she would have pegged the woman as the type who just laid there during sex, the type who swiftly lost men’s interest. Innocence was only appealing briefly in her experience. 

He drummed his fingers on the table. “You didn’t tell me. Were you planning to?”

Perhaps he hadn’t lost interest. There were certainly no lack of feeling on his side. She was tougher to read.

The woman finally met his gaze. “Of course. Eventually.” 

“Brienne, do you want me to leave? Are you moving out?” There was something offended in his voice that strongly suggested he didn’t want either of them to move out. His hand stretched toward hers, but he pulled back without touching her. 

Brienne looked up from her plate, confusion obvious in her expression. “You said you wanted to move on.” 

He shook his head. “I don’t have to move out to do that.”

Chataya nearly laughed. She prided herself on never stooping to matchmaking, but she wanted to bang these two’s heads together. Her daughter occasionally growled “Now kiss,” at couples on television, and finally she understood that impulse. 

“I’d have to put you on the lease.” Brienne’s cheeks were growing pink. She pushed away the remains of her salad. 

His lips turned up at the corners, barely a smile, but Chataya could see the effort it took for him to seem unaffected when he was so clearly pleased. “Maybe put my name on the mailbox too? Lewis Lanster in 2E keeps getting my mail.”

Chataya’s view was abruptly cut off when her client dropped into the chair in front of her. Curiosity was one thing, money was another. Petyr Baelish was still complaining about the cost of waterfront real estate when the pair left the cafe together.

 


	5. INNAREN

“Oh, we need a new shower curtain.” Brienne suddenly darted over to a wall covered with shower curtains. 

“Why?” 

She glared at him. “You leave it all bunched up and it’s getting moldy.” 

Jaime sighed heavily. Six months living together and he still couldn’t quite get the hang of all of Brienne’s little routines and rules. If she would just let him hire a cleaning lady, maybe they wouldn’t need a new shower curtain. He didn't leave his dirty clothes on the floor or drink the last of the milk without replacing it. She could cut him a break on something so minor as a shower curtain. The nearest endcap held a stack of $1.99 curtains. Jaime grabbed a handful and dropped them in the cart. “Problem solved. Just hang a new one when they get moldy.” 

Brienne blinked back at him, trying to read the name on the package. She turned back to the display. “That one? No, Jaime, we can’t use that one.”

“Why not?”

Brienne stalked along the wall, picking at various curtains and dropping them again. “It’s sheer and we only have one bathroom.”

He quite liked the sound of that ‘we,’ even if Brienne was still acting unsettled. He’d have thought that resolving the lease issue would have dispelled some of the tension between them, but she kept looking at him funny and making excuses to leave him in the aisle with the cart. “It’s not as if I haven’t seen you naked,” Jaime pointed out, knowing full well he was pushing his luck.

Brienne didn’t say a word, but the nape of her neck turned a satisfying shade of red. She plucked a red and white-striped package off the shelf and stalked back to their cart, dropping it in and tossing the offending sheer curtains back onto the shelf. She refused to look at him.

That was probably for the best. Jaime could far too easily remember the day he’d seen every freckled inch of her. The gods clearly enjoyed torturing him, because all he’d done was try to sneak into the bathroom and brush his teeth one morning. Brienne was showering, but he was late for a meeting and figured he could brush his teeth and be gone before she knew he’d been there. How was he supposed to know that she would open the curtain before she turned off the water? It definitely wasn’t his fault that she’d stepped out, pink and slick from the hot water, before she noticed him standing there. Given her immediate fumble for a towel and escape from the room, at least she probably hadn’t noticed the way his cock sprang to attention.  

Brienne’s embarrassment had lingered so long that Jaime decided to level the playing field a few days later. Coming back from a morning run to find Brienne drinking coffee and messing about on her laptop in the living room, Jaime had shucked off his shoes in the foyer and just kept stripping as he crossed the living room. He had looked over his shoulder just after he dropped his running shorts and boxer-briefs, caught the stunned expression on her blazing face for just a moment before he closed the bathroom door behind him. 

Brienne’s face was just as flushed now as it had been then. “I need closet organizers,” she mumbled, rushing ahead to the next section of the store.

 


	6. SKOLD

Jaime lounged on a pile of hideous orange plush rugs, squinting at his phone as he held it up by the window. The cart beside him was much fuller than when she’d left him, but that didn’t surprise her. If he wanted to exorcise his old life from his new home, IKEA was easy one stop shopping. That was part of its charm, and a big reason why Brienne shopped here so rarely.  

Luckily the closet organizer she’d found was the last item on her list. She needed more space than a few minutes away could provide. She’d actually hidden behind a display when he ambled past with the cart. Like a teenager. And Brienne hated that he made her feel like one all over again.

There had been moments between them, when she thought she saw something in Jaime’s gaze, felt something in his touch, a spark that wasn’t just friendly. But the man could have modeled for the world-famous statue of the Warrior in Oldtown. Another year with him just might kill her, especially if he started bringing women back to their apartment. Women who weren’t broader and heavier than him, women whose breasts were more than pointy little hills, women who probably knew how to apply mascara without poking themselves in the eye. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. With Jaime, there really was no telling. He might be booking a trip to Yi Ti, reading work emails, or joining one of those awful dating sites people used to find a quick hook-up. No, not that. Maybe texting Tyrion. 

“Ordering new sheets.” His tongue darted out to moisten his lower lip. Ridiculous. In the same position Brienne would look like a beached whale, he looked like he’d fallen out of a magazine photo. 

“You know they do sell those here.” She prodded the contents of the cart, trying to see what he’d dumped in since they parted. 

“Not the kind I like.” No, of course not. Jaime preferred sinfully soft Myrish cotton sheets that felt like silk. Nothing sold here could compare. He wrestled his wallet out of his back pocket.

Brienne pushed aside her closet organizers. Two packages of dark red curtains caught her eye, next to a down duvet rolled up in plastic, a duvet cover blocked in shades of red, and a mass of soft white fur. Brienne picked up the fur gingerly, holding it by one edge. Not fur. Wool.

“A sheepskin rug? Are you decorating your bedroom or a bordello?” As if Jaime needed a bedroom that looked like a porn set to seduce women.

Jaime winked. “I’ve pulled Tyrion out of a few, but how would you know what a bordello looks like?” 

Brienne huffed and dropped the rug back into the cart. He was probably buying black sheets too. She shuddered, remembering the few minutes she’d spent in Hyle Hunt’s apartment, how he’d lured her into his bedroom with its nude art prints and black silk bedding. No, Jaime would never turn into that kind of man. 

“Buy your sheets. I’ll be looking at the garden stuff,” she told him, then headed off toward the exit without the cart. He could manage it, though he wouldn’t be able to help her load the car. He’d never admit it, but his right hand’s grip was too weak to be of much use moving anything heavy. She was tired, and they still had to grab a few last odds and ends, get everything into the car, and drive an hour to their apartment. Somehow Brienne was always done with this store well before it was ready to let her escape.

She was busy sniffing a display of scented candles when he caught up to her. Brienne stole a glance at the cart. The sheepskin was gone, thank the Seven. In addition to being ridiculous, that thing probably would have killed her vacuum cleaner. 

As they entered the warehouse, Jaime stared up at the soaring shelves open-mouthed. “What the hell is this?”

Brienne rolled her eyes. “If you don’t pay for delivery you pick up your boxes here.” As if to illustrate her point, they reached the main aisle, teeming with other shoppers pushing flatbed carts piled high with flat brown boxes. 

“They don’t bring the boxes to you?” His brow was furrowed in a way that was simultaneously annoying and endearing. Jaime was a smart man, a man who had traveled far and seen much in his time, but in some ways he was utterly clueless.

“No, they don’t. I’ve never paid for their delivery service before. Renly and I just borrowed a truck and loaded it all ourselves.” She stopped short.  

Jaime’s hand settled on her shoulder, squeezed gently. The heavy cart rolled to a stop beside them. “Brienne?”

She could picture Renly here, pushing the cart and jumping on, letting it coast ten or fifteen feet before jumping off just in time to avoid a collision. “Last time I was here, we were furnishing his new apartment. I just realized, I hardly think about him anymore. I don’t know when that happened.”

“You haven’t cursed his name or disparaged his sexual prowess in a month. Maybe two,” Jaime offered.

She’d never talked about her sex life with Jaime. A more humiliating prospect she could scarcely imagine. But they had discussed Renly. Jaime had known him for many years, after all. “We were good together, in some ways. Not good enough, obviously.” Brienne wasn’t blind to Renly’s faults, not now. That day she’d also seen a side of Renly she hadn’t liked very much. He’d picked out exactly what he wanted, no matter how impractical or expensive, even though Stannis had just cut him off from his trust fund.

“That’s his loss. You know that, right?” Jaime stepped closer to her, making room for a man pushing a heavy cart to get past them. Jaime’s hand settled at the small of her back. 

Renly had told her on their second date that he was attracted to both women and men. Sitting in a coffee shop on a Saturday night, surrounded by every variety of couple, she’d taken that at face value. She’d actually been a little relieved, figuring that her androgynous looks, the same thing that had repelled so many other men, were part of her appeal for him. She hadn’t minded when Renly would occasionally disappear into the crowd at a party, only for her to spot him twenty minutes later dancing with a stranger. She was far too self-conscious to dance, and she had told herself it didn’t matter if some guy was grinding against her boyfriend. He’d always come back to her.

Their relationship had cooled swiftly after Margaery moved in. It was still a shock to come home and find Renly on her couch, his pants pushed down and Loras kneeling at his feet. But it wasn’t truly a surprise. She’d seen the way they looked at each other. Brienne had kicked them both out, drank herself into a stupor, then packed up his things and shoved the box into Margaery’s room. The girl had earned her eviction by trying to defend their behavior. Brienne hadn’t cared if they loved each other; he owed her honesty, no matter how difficult the conversation might have been.

Jaime wouldn’t have lied to her. It hurt sometimes, how blunt he could be. But he never flattered, and when he complimented her, he made her believe it. She smiled at him. “Loras is welcome to him. He can deal with always being late because Renly has to change outfits twice before going out, or how he can’t wake up without hitting snooze on his alarm four times.”

Jaime looked like he wanted to say something else, but they were blocking traffic standing here in the middle of the aisle. He glanced toward the exit. “Looks like they sell ice cream just past the checkouts. Why don’t you get us a couple of cones while l check out and arrange the delivery?”

Brienne wanted to object, and she’d need to go over the receipt later and sneak some cash into his wallet to cover her share, but right now she was simply grateful that he understood how old feelings surfaced at the oddest moments.

She hoped he would still be so understanding when he realized how much stuff they still had to fit into her tiny car. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably no update tomorrow, and definitely not two updates.


	7. ASSEMBLY: Part 1

The alarm on his phone was beeping when Jaime turned off the shower. He wanted to stay there under the hot water, letting it pour over his sore muscles, but the water was cooling, and Brienne could be home at any minute. He still needed to call for takeout. Maybe he could get that little tapas place Brienne liked to deliver. He definitely didn’t have time to cook anything decent. Furniture assembly had taken much longer than he’d expected.

Jaime hesitated between the bathroom and his bedroom, a towel slung around his hips, and admired the fruits of his labor. The place finally looked like two people lived here. Brienne was very particular about keeping things neat, and Jaime had swiftly grown weary of coming home and finding his things lined up outside his bedroom door. He’d gotten into the habit of walking through the living room each night picking up after himself. Jaime lived here, but it still felt like Brienne’s home, not his. At least, it had when she left for work that morning. 

The deliverymen had arrived an hour later, and Jaime had worked steadily all day, stopping only to eat and cart empty boxes down to the recycling bins. He hadn’t minded taking the day off work to deal with this, especially after their talk over lunch the previous day. If Jaime was going to stay, he was done erasing himself from this space every night. 

This was a risk, he knew that. The furniture, the lease, committing to another year in this apartment. Brienne was his best friend, other than Tyrion, which meant that Renly now gave him a wide berth at family celebrations. Renly wasn’t so brazen as to actually turn up with Loras Tyrell, but that had more to do with Stannis’s disapproval than Jaime’s. 

Jaime had never had much use for Renly before, had never understood what Renly was playing at bringing Brienne around the family and pretending there was anything more than fondness between them. Renly could hold her hand and press chaste little kisses to her full lips all he wanted, the only one he’d ever fooled was Brienne. Jaime could hardly look at Renly now without wanting to punch him in his smug, pretty face. 

Jaime had had to resist that same impulse out at drinks with Brienne’s coworkers for her birthday. She’d been on one date with Hyle Hunt months earlier, yet Hunt had been hanging all over her, trying to cajole her to dance with him, until Jaime had stepped in and stayed glued to her side the rest of the evening. Brienne still complained that her coworkers all thought they were a couple, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

That was the problem. His entire experience with women boiled down to endless flirting from random women (and men, really) and a string of passionate trysts with Cersei. Everyone seemed to assume that with his money and looks he wouldn’t even need to pursue a woman; she’d just fall into his bed. Brienne didn’t care about his money, nor did his smile dazzle her. Jaime had no idea how to tell Brienne that he wanted more than just her apartment—he wanted her. 

All he could do was show her, and he’d spent the day doing just that. The broken couch that had been shoved into the corner of the room was gone, along with the folding chairs they’d been using. The massive leather sofa was assembled in the middle of the room, the throw pillows from the old couch scattered atop it. The antique steamer trunk from Jaime’s room was now a coffee table, facing new dark wood shelves flanking the television. The ancient sword Jaime had received in his father's will, rippling steel decorated with gold lions and rubies, was mounted on the wall above the television. Her plank and cinder block shelving was banished to a storage space in the basement. 

Jaime hadn't bothered asking her before buying the new shelving units. Brienne would never have spent so much on shelves to hold her thrift-store paperbacks and collection of seashells from Tarth. Jaime had no such qualms about housing his sports memorabilia, his antique gold gauntlets, and the fossilized “dragon” egg he'd bought solely because he enjoyed the merchant’s tale so much. 

The lease renewal, half filled out in Jaime’s untidy scrawl, lay on the trunk. He hoped she wouldn't get all flustered about it again. But he had no more time to worry about that unless he wanted Brienne to come home and catch him standing there in nothing but a towel. Tempting, but no. Not like that, not with her.

Jaime ducked into his room and groaned. Thank the Seven the couch looked comfortable, because he’d probably be sleeping on it tonight. His room was completely trashed. Boxes rested haphazardly against the walls, pieces of bed frame pushed against them. The floor was dominated by a massive foam mattress, which Jaime had unrolled before he assembled the bed frame. Like an idiot. The thrice-damned mattress weighed close to a hundred pounds. It had inflated in the space of a minute, maybe less, and now bent and folded and resisted his every attempt to move it. He shoved a box out of the way and groped blindly for clothes in his closet.

“Jaime?” 

He wrestled a shirt on, annoyed that his skin was still damp, as was his hair. He ducked swiftly out of his room, closing the door behind him. “Hey. How was work?”

Brienne stood in the middle of the living room, her mouth hanging open in shock. The spices hanging in the air told him that the takeout bags on the kitchen island held Dornish food, which explained the six-pack of beer next to them.  Neither of them drank much or often. Brienne hated losing control, and Jaime had watched his family get drunk far too often to find the prospect appealing. But spicy Dornish food and manual labor seemed to demand a cold beer.

She gestured broadly at the room. “Did you do all this yourself?”

“Nah, I hired a couple of guys and sat on my ass directing them.” He snorted. “Of course I did.” Jaime was particularly proud of that, though he had wrenched his shoulder and his hand ached from screwing together so many pieces.

“I thought there’d be boxes and pieces of couch all over the floor,” she admitted sheepishly. “I thought we’d eat dinner and spend the evening putting it together.”

Was that disappointment in her voice? That, he had to admit, wouldn’t have been the worst way to spend an evening, even if it meant she hadn’t had faith he’d be able to follow the idiotic picture directions. He shouldn’t even mention the work he hadn’t finished, but she would notice if he slept on the couch. “If you really want to, the bed’s not quite put together.”

Brienne peeked past him into the wreck of his room. She whistled. “Why did you unroll the mattress first?” 

He sighed. “The girl at the store said it would take hours to fully expand, and there wasn’t any space in the living room then.”

Brienne just shook her head and crossed the short hallway to her bedroom. “Let me change and we’ll have ...” She faltered, frozen in the doorway.

Damn. He hadn’t finished his work in her room either. Jaime came up behind her, confirming it did look just as messy as he remembered. Her quilt and pillows were heaped on the floor, a mountain of robin’s egg blue sheets on the bed. He’d intended to make the bed, so she wouldn’t notice the sheets until she got in bed tonight. 

The silence stretched, but the nape of her neck had gone a lovely shade of pink. “Too much?” he asked, unable to keep a hint of amusement out of his voice. They were just sheets, after all, and they weren’t even quite the color he’d expected. On his phone’s screen, they’d matched her eyes, and he hadn’t been able to resist adding a set for her to his order. 

“No, but you didn’t have to do that.” She turned and rocked back on her heels to find him so close. 

“I wanted to. You seemed to like mine.” That was an understatement. She’d practically purred the first time she’d touched his sheets, pulling them out of the dryer to make way for another load of laundry. 

That wasn’t the only reason he’d bought the sheets. Jaime didn’t particularly like her work clothes, as a general rule. Shapeless slacks in navy and gray, plain button-down shirts in muted colors, boxy blazers or enormous hand-knit cardigans she’d received as gifts from a neighbor back on Tarth. It all looked itchy and cheap. Jaime liked to imagine her coming home, casting off those ill-fitting, coarse garments and slipping between silky-soft sheets. Maybe she’d make that noise again. Maybe one night he’d be close enough to hear it. 

Brienne glanced back into her room, then past Jaime to the living room. “Let’s eat, while I get used to all this,” she said with a little wave toward the new furniture. “Then we’ll sort out your bed.” 

Her tone was all business, but the flush he'd noticed on her neck had spread across her chest, into the tempting hollow between her breasts revealed by her button-down shirt. She could pretend all she liked, but she wasn't embarrassed. Maybe he wasn't the only one who'd fantasized about those sheets. Maybe in her fantasies she wasn't alone.  


 

 


	8. ASSEMBLY: Part 2

“You’re going to crush me,” Jaime gritted out, his arms straining against the mattress. He was trapped between the mattress and the bed frame, perilously close to being dragged under the foam if it fell over.

“That can be arranged.” Brienne struggled to keep the mattress upright as she tried to drag it far enough to free Jaime. It was easier said than done. The foam was dense and heavy, but it had no structure or framing, weight shifting unpredictably. 

Putting together the frame hadn’t been difficult, but Jaime had had to hold the pieces together while she tightened the screws. Occasionally they’d had to be awkwardly close, giving Brienne a very up-close look at the sculpted muscles of his arms and filling her nose with the clean, freshly-showered scent of him.  

“If I have to die in bed, can I at least choose how I go?” he growled, hefting the mattress with a grunt and shoving it back just enough that the entire weight shifted toward Brienne. He managed one step back, only half his body trapped between mattress and frame.

“Fine, just don’t let go yet,” she grumbled, setting her shoulder against the mattress and dragging her end another few inches. She still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d ended up trapped on that side. Not listening to her instructions most likely.

Jaime wriggled back, trying to maneuver between the mattress, the frame, and the nightstand behind him. “Fuck the mattress,” he growled. “Those thighs could crush me.” His gaze deliberately dropped to her legs, bare beneath a pair of cotton pajama shorts. 

Brienne lost her grip on the mattress, the shifting weight startling them both. He scrambled out just before the mattress toppled onto the frame with a loud thunk. Avoiding his eyes, Brienne pushed the mattress into place. She was keenly aware of her heavy muscles flexing, and his gaze on her. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Yes, she could hurt most men without much effort, had even done it a few times, but she didn’t like Jaime thinking of her that way. 

Jaime grabbed a pile of silky gold sheets from the carpet and tossed them onto the bed, flopping down on top of them. He sighed and patted the bed beside him. “Come here.” He clearly had no idea he’d hurt her feelings. 

Brienne shook her head. “I shouldn't. Early meeting tomorrow.” She didn’t wait for a response, turning to go.

“Are you busy Friday?” 

She glanced back at him. “No, why?”

Jaime was sitting up now, watching her with an expression she couldn’t figure out. “We should go out. Dinner, whatever.”

Brienne waited for him to elaborate. They never went out by themselves, always in a group. Those were the nights she’d see  _ him_, not her roommate but a man other women couldn’t stop staring at. The line of his jaw and the honeyed drawl of his voice, the mischief in his smile. And she’d feel flushed and reckless for a few heartbeats before her sense kicked in. Like right now.

“What, to celebrate renewing the lease or something?”

“Or something."

 


	9. TRÄFF

They met at a restaurant neither of them had tried before, an odd little place where they sat on cushions around a low table and ate with their fingers. Brienne felt so awkward, licking sauce off her fingers and trying not to dribble food all over her new blouse. Whatever had possessed her to wear silk? And Jaime was so distracted he kept asking her to repeat herself. Finally Brienne stopped talking, focusing on chasing bits of spiced meat and beans around her plate with a bit of flatbread. 

“Can I try that?” Jaime asked, pointing at her entree. He’d ordered something she couldn’t pronounce, and even now looking at it she couldn’t tell what it was. 

“Sure.” Brienne started to pick up her plate to pass it to him, but Jaime shook his head.

“Just give me a taste.” He smiled, that sweet, ridiculous little half smile she couldn’t refuse.

Without flatware, Brienne had no choice but to scoop up a bit of meat between her thumb and forefinger and offer it to him. Jaime grasped her wrist and pulled the food and her fingers straight into his mouth, his tongue sweeping between her fingers, sucking each fingertip clean. It was necessity, not flirting, but her hand was tingling and she couldn’t help wondering what his mouth would feel like elsewhere on her skin. 

Brienne was still thinking about that when he suggested, “Why don’t we get some dessert to go?” 

Normally, those words would be exactly what she wanted to hear. Her size always drew stares and whispers when she was out, but they were louder and more blatant when she was out with a man. She’d gotten used to it with Renly, who didn’t give a damn what anyone said about them. Jaime had a temper. She couldn’t count on him to ignore it. 

But this had been such a good night. She wasn’t ready for it to end. She reluctantly agreed to leave anyway, taking her time walking to the train station, stopping to look in shop windows, trading bites of pistachio and cardamom ice cream with Jaime. On the crowded train, Brienne let herself lean against him. She could almost pretend this was a real date. The busker across the aisle wasn’t helping her shake loose the fantasy. He winked at her and started playing a love song on his guitar. 

Jaime turned his head to look at the busker, his lips brushing her temple. Brienne shivered, and he draped his arm around her shoulders. Good didn’t even begin to describe this moment, but she had no illusions about him, or them. Cersei had never liked to share Jaime, in any way, so he had almost no experience with female friendship. He’d always been more solicitous, more possessive, and more tactile than was usual in Brienne’s experience. 

Jaime dropped a few bills in the busker’s hat when they reached their station, walking the two blocks to their building in companionable silence. The quiet persisted until Brienne was fishing out her keys on the front steps of their building. 

“This is where I’m supposed to ask for a good-night kiss, isn’t it?”

Brienne almost dropped her keys. How did he know what she’d been thinking? Her face burned with embarrassment. He must think she was so stupid. Without looking back, she tried to keep her voice light. “Very funny.”

She unlocked the door, held it open as Jaime stepped through. He took the stairs ahead of her, not stopping to collect the mail as they usually did upon coming home from work. All the ease and affection between them this evening had evaporated on the doorstep, and by the time they reached their hallway Brienne was desperate to get that feeling back.

“You caught me, I admit it, okay? It was nice to pretend, for just a few minutes.” She trailed off helplessly as Jaime opened their apartment door. “Do you have to torture me about it?” 

“I didn’t realize the thought of kissing me qualified as torture,” he said drily, disappearing into the apartment.

No, torture was knowing Jaime wasn’t remotely serious. Or if he was, he’d simply brush a quick, absolutely platonic kiss on her cheek. Brienne couldn’t decide which would be worse. What she wanted was one of those long, deep, spine-melting kisses that trashy novels took a full page to describe. He looked like the hero of a trashy novel, he ought to kiss like one too. 

Pushing that thought out of her mind, Brienne followed him in. She still wasn’t used to the changes in the apartment. The entryway was the only spot left untouched. Everywhere else, Jaime had left his mark. She had to admit, as she sank gratefully onto the soft couch, that it was an improvement.

In the kitchen, Jaime leaned against the counter by the coffee pot. “I suppose I could torture you with kisses. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. Every damn morning, you in those tiny pajama shorts with your miles of legs.”

A laugh tore from her throat. “You’ve got to be kidding.” The boxer shorts she slept in weren’t remotely sexy, and neither were her thick, heavily-freckled legs. 

Jaime shook his head, and abandoned the kitchen in favor of sitting beside her on the couch. “I just took you out to dinner, flirted shamelessly the whole time, and asked to kiss you. I know it’s been a long time since I had to woo a woman, but I didn’t think I’d botched it that badly.” 

“You’re wooing me?” She couldn’t keep the hint of amusement out of her voice. Being wooed was unprecedented, unthinkable. Even Renly had simply asked her for a coffee date. 

“That sounds better than trying to get in your pants, doesn’t it?” He grinned shamelessly, watching her face heat.

Brienne laughed despite herself. This conversation had started ridiculously and was becoming more nonsensical by the minute. Only in some kind of alternate universe could Jaime be trying and failing to make a move on her. 

Jaime sighed. “You drive me crazy, and you’re not even trying.”

Brienne relaxed, embracing whatever madness had taken them over tonight. “Me and my boxer shorts?”

He nodded, leaning closer, trailing one finger along her jaw and up to ghost across her lower lip. His voice roughened as his hand dropped to her open collar. “And this flimsy blouse clinging to your breasts, teasing me all night.” 

Her heart was pounding so hard he must be able to see it. The midnight blue silk had looked so elegant on the rack and not too terrible in the changing room. She’d wanted to feel pretty, if only in that one small way, and for once a man had noticed. But even with Jaime’s fingertips lazily tracing her collarbone, she could see a thousand ways this night could end badly. “Jaime, any woman with a pulse would want to kiss you, but this is a terrible idea.” 

“Why?” His dark eyes flicked back and forth between her mouth and her eyes, and he shifted closer on the couch, his thigh pressed firmly against hers. 

"We’re roommates.” Brienne had always been grateful that she hadn’t moved in with Renly. Maybe they would have had another few months together before he found someone else, but her apartment was hers, it wasn’t saturated with memories of Renly. Just the one, and Jaime had taken away the constant reminder of that moment. Replacing it with himself. If Jaime left, he would leave gaping holes in the apartment and her life. Empty shelves, empty evenings. 

“Do  _ you  _ want to kiss me?” There was a plea laced in that question, heat and a hint of fear in Jaime’s green eyes. A painfully human heart under the Warrior’s armor. His hand curled around the nape of her neck, fingertips playing with her hair.

“Yes.” Her own vehemence startled her, and words started tumbling from her mouth. “But what if it’s bad, Jaime? What if every morning instead of looking at my legs you’re just thinking, what a terrible, awful kiss that was?” 

Jaime laughed, drew her closer. “Only one way to find out.”

If her heart beat any faster she was going to pass out, right there on the couch in her stupid silk shirt. Her eyes focused on his mouth, slowly, inexorably approaching hers. 

And then Jaime was kissing her. Finally. 

It wasn’t terrible. 

It was lightning, coursing through her veins and lighting up the world behind her eyelids, unfamiliar and wonderful. Her hand came up to his face, his stubble prickling under her fingertips, following the line of his jaw. 

Jaime kissed her lower lip, the corner of her mouth, held there with his forehead against hers and his breath caressing her skin. “That was awful,” he said with a desperate little laugh.

“Horrible,” she agreed, turning to get closer to him, her free hand running down his arm.

And Jaime kissed her again, his arm around her waist hauling her closer, until Brienne found herself straddling his lap, his hands roaming over her back and tangling in her hair. His mouth was everywhere, behind her ear and nipping at her throat, licking her collarbone and stroking into her mouth while his fingers plucked at her nipples through the silk blouse.  

Brienne felt like she knew this dance, these steps, but someone had changed the music, turned up the volume and the bass until there was nothing left but heat and pressure and friction building to heights she’d never known existed, much less reached.

Then Jaime’s hands were under her thighs and he was pushing up, rubbing against her so hard it left her gasping his name. They rose suddenly, Jaime coaxing her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. He couldn’t mean to carry her. 

But he did and he was, staggering a bit under her weight and half-blind because neither was willing to break their kiss. They tumbled onto his bed in a tangle of limbs, the buttons of her shirt opening swiftly under his hands and Brienne tugging his shirt over his head. The cool sheets warmed under their fevered skin as Jaime stripped off the rest of her clothes, explored her legs, and then between them, with hands and lips and tongue. 

Sweat was cooling on her skin when Brienne could think again. Jaime had gone to her room for condoms, left over from her time with Renly. She didn’t want to think about him now, still trembling from quite possibly the strongest orgasm of her life, but sex with Renly had never been like this. Jaime’s touch was scalding, demanding, and he poured his entire being into his kiss. He’d marked her, made her his, just like he’d done with the apartment.

Jaime was standing in the doorway, golden and gloriously naked, made only slightly ridiculous by the foil packets in his hand and the condom sheathing his impressive cock. His dark gaze roamed slowly over her. She must be covered in stubble burn and at least a few love bites. Jaime was nothing if not thorough. 

“You know,” he said slowly, “we should really go to your place next time. Much more convenient.”

Brienne laughed. Her place was all of ten feet away. Her bed maybe fifteen feet. “There hasn’t even been a first time yet. You think there’s going to be a next time?”

Jaime stalked over to the bed, tossed the extra condoms on the nightstand. The way he was looking at her right now, they might need them all tonight. He settled over Brienne, the weight and heat of his body absolutely perfect, taking her mouth in a deep, penetrating kiss that stole her breath. Jaime pulled her leg up around his hip and filled her with a single thrust. He kissed her again, the tenderness of it in stark contrast to the hard length of him stroking deep inside her. 

“Definitely a next time. And another. And another. As long as you’ll have me.”

 


End file.
